Intuition and conversations

So I'm in that early stage of product building. That confusing stage before you have a product shipped that people are using, where ideas shift in your head in ways that can confuse the hell out of you.

I've been chatting with founders about this stage of product building, and it's been so helpful to hear how founders approach it.

At a high level it seems this stage involves two things, helpfully summarised from an email I got from Rahul Vohra of superhuman yesterday (the latest founder to generously offer me advice in this stage):

1. Intuition
2. Talking to lots of people (50+)

Firstly, my intuition has led me to the area of how people creating products talk to their current or potential customers, and how they find the insights that form the basis of great products. I have a sense that there has to be ways to help people in this challenging area.

Secondly, in terms of talking to people: As a designer, I've been talking to other designers. This has involved checking out the conversations online (thanks @richap for the advice on checking out Reddit), and then chats in person / on zoom. Also as a founder, I've been interested to explore the experience of other founders, and how they engage with their customers to get at the insight they need for building their products.

It's still early days, but I'm really enjoying the conversations with people, and I feel my intuition getting honed. I've now formed three different (very simple) product prototypes. I'll be putting these prototypes in front of people as I continue the conversations, and I guess we just see what emerges.

Hope all is going well in your efforts to navigate this crazy space of ideas and validation.